To get my dog to sleep later?

[C4itl]

I have a 1 1/2 year old dog who refuses to sleep past 5:30am every morning. This doesn't change depending on how long he's been for a walk, how late he's been fed or whether he needs the toilet. He will just wake up at 5:30am and bark until someone goes downstairs to see him.

Any ideas on how I can move this wake up time to something more reasonable? 6:30 would be fine, 7am would be perfect!

I feel your pain.
While most people are are enjoying the mornings getting brighter, for me it means when the clock goes back, the cat starts yowling in my face to be let out anywhere from 4am!

Where does he sleep? Are black out blinds an option?

Cats are a different story, you can’t tell them anything! But dogs - with all ours we just go to them, say bad, in your basket, and stay. They don’t get attention or fed until we get up.

@Dotdotdotdashdashdashdotdotdot He was sleeping in the kitchen and we've recently allowed him to just sleep on the couch which solved the problem for a whole of a week and then he was back to waking up early. I don't think it's the light nights as this has been going on during winter as well

Big loud alarm. Set it for earlier than 5.30am and as soon as it goes off, get up. You need to be able to hear it, the dog needs to be able to hear it. And it needs to go off before he starts barking because he shouldn't every have a reason to think his barking set the alarm off .

After a few days of alarm = everyone gets up, then push it back a few mins. Be strict and firm that no human gets up until the alarm goes off.

Keep pushing the alarm back and be consistent that no one gets up until the alarm goes off. Once it gets to 7am then keep it going for some weeks - but eventually you should be able to drop the alarm and just get up at 7am consistently.

It sounds counter-productive, but set an early alarm so you wake the dog up, not the other way around.

You want to get him up and out to the toilet etc. before he barks so he breaks the association he currently has (that barking = company).

You should then be able to set the alarm later and later and eventually he'll learn that he gets up when you appear, not when he barks at you.

My dog always woke up at a reasonable time 7.30/8.00 until the clocks went back last year. Ever since she's been waking up anywhere from 5.45 to around 6.30, usually it's 6ish.

By the time I've given her her breakfast I'm too wide awake to go back to sleep but I feel exhausted all the time.

I'm just hoping that when the clocks go forward in a few weeks she'll start sleeping later.

Could you let him upstairs with you in the morning? He will probably settle back down if he's with you.